LEARNING TO TELL A STORY -religious
Practise. It may be hard on your relatives and friends, but the world will be the gainer. — i f gnes Y. Downey. If you blunder on a detail of a story, never admit it. Never take the children behind the scenes, and let them hear the creaking of your mental machinery. — Sara Cone Bryant. Pradise! It will go clumsily at first. . . . Imagination will be dull, facts will escape your memory, relations will be confused, you will seem to be acting a part. . . . But per¬severe, persevere! Study results. If you fail, see why you fail, and thus lay the foundation for success. Listen to others that know how to do it. Catch their points of effectiveness. Above all things, practise! practise! practise! — Amos R. Fells . But if one have neither natural adaptation nor experience, still I say, Tell the stories; tell the stories; a thousand times, tell the stories! You have no cold, unsympathetic audience to deal with; the child is helpful, receptive, warm, eager, friendly. His whole-hearted interest, his surprise, admiration, and wise comment will spur you on. — Nora Archibald Smith. OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF THE TOPIC 1. Mastering the story. a. Defining its aim. b. Seeing it as a whole. c. Analyzing it into its elements. 2. Giving it form. a. The first reproduction. b. Condensation for unity of meaning. c. Expansion for emotional effect. 3. Developing skill. a. Practise for familiarity with the story itself. b. Practise for improvement through reaction to the audience. c. Practise for impressiveness through making it your own. 4. The value of following such a plan. BECAUSE practise is by far the most important element in the preparation of the skilled story-teller it seems best to give at this point some specific and detailed suggestions to guide the beginner in that phase of his training. These hints are based on principles that have already been pre¬. sented. The practical aim above indicated is of suffi¬cient importance to the novice to warrant something of detailed application, even though it may seem unduly repetitious and prescriptive. The plan suggested may well guide the teacher's procedure until he has evolved a better one of his own. That he is likely to do, for none of us have the same men¬tal habits; but the beginner, unless he is a genius of unusual type, cannot safely omit any one of the steps indicated below. Patient and systematic use of some such plan will greatly hasten the day when he can dis¬pense with all guidance save his own feeling for that which is appropriate and artistic. The first step in the preparation for the telling of a story is to determine the purpose for which it is to be used. It is not enough to assume the moral or religious aim; this must be defined in a specific way. The teacher must have clearly in mind the particular virtue to which the story is to incite the hearer or the very fault of which it is designed to warn him. This means more than that an illustrative story must really illustrate the lesson in which it is to be used. We sometimes repeat a story which we have heard be¬cause as we listened to it we felt its moral power, but we must remember that its special impressiveness was chiefly due to the narrator's appreciation of its message. If there be any vagueness in its meaning for us there will be a corresponding loss of force when we pass it on to another. If we use a story for a different purpose than that of the author it is obvious that we must begin our planning from our own point of view. If we use it for the same purpose, we may be sure that we will miss many a fine point of effectiveness in lesser details unless we fully appreciate the author's aim. When the story has been selected and its message defined the next step toward preparation for telling it before the class is that of becoming thoroughly familiar with it. This does not imply memorization, for that in¬volves a loss of the spontaneity that is one of the chief charms of story-telling, nor does it involve close atten¬tion to details, but rather a thorough grasp of the story as a whole. Having reached a clean-cut definition of the moral of the tale, there must be a clear appreciation of the feelings which are to be stirred, and then a mastery of the general outlines of the events. If the story has strongly impressed one, two or three thoughtful readings will usually secure these results. The third step is one of careful analysis. The story¬teller must determine what forms the climax of the story. At first this will often require careful thought, but with practise it will become an almost unconscious process. Having settled this the teacher must next decide what events are necessary to prepare the way for the climax, and the order in which they can be most effectively presented. The making of a written outline will at first be the most satisfactory mode of accomplishing this, and, indeed, is usually essential unless the plot is very simple. These vital events having been determined and set in order one must now decide how the story can be ended without detracting from the force of the climax, and how it can be begun in such a way as to arouse immediate interest. The essential elements being now defined, the fourth step is to tell or write the story with such elaboration of the bare outline as may seem desirable. For the teacher who uses the story orally, writing is doubtless the less valuable exercise at this stage. The best plan is to tell the story to a friend of the patient sort, or, if it is suitable, to a child or group of children — who are always ready to become the subjects of experiments of that nature. The chief purpose of this preliminary telling of the story is to test one's mastery of the content, and to prepare the way for a refinement and enrichment of both content and form. The fifth step consists of a strict criticism of the story, in the form which it has now taken, from the standpoint of the principle of unity. Every episode, incident, event, and description that does not directly add to the power of the story in the use that you now have in mind is to be eliminated. This is sometimes heroic treatment, but it pays. The apparent loss is retrieved with added gain in the next step. Your aim is to stir certain feelings or to present certain truths; every word that does not further these ends hinders the accomplishment of your purpose. The sixth step consists in the careful elaboration of the really essential features of the story by touches of description, adding of details, use of telling epithets, and in all other ways that will add to effectiveness without obscuring the main points. This will frequently leave the story as full of detail as before the preceding condensation, but of detail that at every point strengthens the story for the use to which it is to be put. The last step is that of practise. Tell the story again and again. It is not possible to carry this too far. The aim is largely to provide for perfect familiarity with the content and form, but there are other advantages of great importance. As one gains familiarity with the story there is less of self-consciousness. One learns to give oneself wholly to the story and the audience. Again, there is a reaction to the hearers, and the form improves as a result. There is also a gain growing out of the response of the story-teller to the story itself. More and more, as a result of this repetition, it becomes a personal possession and is told not from memory but really from the heart. This is the principle that lies back of the old saying that a man may tell a lie until he believes it himself! Let us make use of this psychological fact, for it will aid us to gain success. It is after the story has been told twenty times, and it may be to the same audience if they are children, that there will be most frequent requests that it be told again. Looking back over these suggestions the beginner may feel that it would require less effort to simply follow the story as it appears in the book or as it was told by another. There can be no doubt that this is true, but the fact remains that good story-tellers do not do that way. Those who do lack confidence and spontaneity, fail to develop original ways of putting things, and are unable to improvise or even to satis¬factorily work up their own experiences for use with a class. All these ends are furthered by systematic use of such a plan as has been outlined. At first the diction of the novice will not equal that of the master in whose mind the story first took form, but there is always the opportunity to turn again to the original version, after one has thus made the story his own, and adopt a telling phrase or correct a clumsy statement. And on the whole it will from the first give better results. It will lead to mastery of content before form. The action will be seen as moving to one dearly defined end by steps which can hardly be missed. The various incidents will appear in due perspective. The mere setting of the story will become as important in its contribution to artistic effect as the well-studied background of a painting, and it will obtrude itself no more. The average person can relate a series of events in the order in which they occurred without much effort, and that will serve his purpose if it is but to give infor¬mation. Any one can memorize a story by simple repetition, and that plan may be used if he is to tell but one. But if motives are to be stirred, if conduct is to be guided, if character is to be formed, and especially if one is to have this opportunity many times, he can afford to honor his art and take such time and pains as are necessary to perfect his technique. Skill is noth¬ing more than the possession of correct habits of pro¬cedure. If one way of doing a thing is better in the end, it pays to do it that difficult way at first because by and by that way will become the easy and uncon¬scious mode of procedure, as well as the one that leads to the highest achievement. Practise, guided by a well-conceived plan, is the chief secret of success. HINTS FOR FIRST - HAND STUDY Select two stories that are about equally difficult, and both of which contain a number of incidents or events. Learn one by simply reading it again and again without memorizing. Follow the plan suggested above with the other. At the end of a week test the results by an attempt to use each. Analyze the stories that you read. Study the way in which the several elements are managed. Recall some story which you have heard but once, but which mused your interest, and attempt to outline the successive events in their order. Then make the analysis and see if others are recalled. Note how readily you can fill gaps by improvisa¬tion when the aim is defined and the elements are outlined before you. Follow the plan outlined in this article in the reproduction from memory of some good, short story, and note the value of the fifth and sixth steps. As you listen to stories in the meeting of the League, club, or class, jot down outlines as indicated above, and work up the stories for use. Satisfy yourself that such a plan of preparation does not pay before you abandon it.